Sony Alpha 7S in low-light: See video at ISO 409,600

Earlier this week Sony got a lot of attention with its Alpha 7S announcement - a 12MP full-frame mirrorless camera with 4k video capabilities and ISO expandable to 409,600 for stills and video. This sounds impressive, but how does it actually perform? Sony just released a video demonstrating the high ISO performance of the Alpha 7S. Over a minute and half, using a Sony A-mount 16-35mm F2.8 lens at 1/50, the video shows the contrast as it progressively steps up to ISO 409,600 starting from 1600.

Mind boggling to see that happening now. Of course, the 409K does not resemble the actual scene but it just shows how they've gone to make the NR extremely low at high ISO and I would LIKE to see a very low noise at 25,600 which seems to be the way we see at night with ambient light from moon and fire. 409K makes it look like it's happening in the daytime. But really, the point is that the camera is extremely sensitive and is able to keep noise under control. That impresses me.

I believe you're spot on regarding available, but natural, lighting. Of course, using a tripod combined with low ISO and slow shutter speed a similar result cane be achieved. But I think photographers shooting with available light at night, simply need an ISO that let's them hand-hold their camera and avoid camera shake. And not necessarily to overdo the ISO setting.

This will allow for more natural scenes that are trying to reproduce actions in the darkness, since the actors could play their roles with very little extra light or no light at all, making them to act even closer to real.

Wow, whoever too this "video" -- if they had waited a bit until it got daylight, they could have captured the same exact footage at ISO 400. All they would have had to do was to poke the fire for a few hours till daybreak.

Looks good up to 102400 but then next stop is OK for web if really need to upload right away but post process would give much better results. And finally the so much hyped 409600 is almost unusable on large screens (from 7" up).

full screen on a 15" retina mac and yes, the 409600 doesn't look amazing but it was perfectly viewable, stating its unusable on large screens 7" up is a massive overstatement in my eyes. I think this also needs to be put into context, this is almost night vision level of ISO and there is still some colour and contrast. amazing performance and ground-breaking by any measure

I love how people complain. This camera is amazing. I want one. I'm an indie filmmaker, and would love to have the flexibility this camera will provide by allowing me to use less lighting equipment. Will I shoot at 400k? Hell, yeah! It lengthens my shooting day! If I need to shoot something that looks like dusk, and it's midnight, I can do that. I'm thinking 1600 will be absolutely spectacular, as well.

The bar continues to be raised, and pretty fast, by all camera manufacturers.While I have always used Canon equipment, I think Sony's Alpha 7, 7R, and now 7S, are very impressive full-frame small cameras.I am leaning towards getting one of these, but only if I could use my stash of Canon L lenses on them.

If Sony has not caught up with Canon or Nikon sensors, as some comments have suggested, I have no doubt it won't be long before they surpass Canon and Nikon.Teaming up with Zeiss gives them a source for lenses that is second to none!

The other camera manufacturer that will most likely make big surprises down the road is Samsung.

Good job Sony; no one was even dreaming of, or imagining, a 400,000 ISO, just a short while back!

Whereas I accept there has been a bit of technical fudging to make the sensor look even more impressive, it is still a bit of a technical tour de force. This will be a very useful camera for wildlife photographers. If it can perform this well with a regular Sony zoom lens, think of the sort of low light video you could take by mounting a Leica f0.95 Noctilux on it or one of the specialist full frame movie ultra fast lenses. The Noctilux being three stops faster than the Sony zoom, would give an effective ISO equivalent to 3,276,800. This would mean being able to take video in conditions that previously would have required night vision equipment, taking green and black images. Wilson

Nice, but video nr has the advantage of being applied temporally in addition to spatially where as stills is only the latter. To get an idea of the advantage of temporal NR advantage consider the multishot NR capability of many recent cameras.

I am a professional video person and what I am noticing is at ISO 3200 the compression artefacts seem quite visible, comparable to the older 5D Mk2. The 5D Mk3 was about 1 stop faster so this kind of noise would only be visible at about ISO6400. Then what we see in this video is that once the brightness is lifted at around 25,000 ISO the noise issues are less obvious because noise is always more visible on darker areas. I definitely agree that this seems to be shot to underexpose at ISO1600 to amplify the difference at 400,000 ISO. My guess would be that we could actually see quite a lot at the Sony's 1600ISO with not too much noise and the ISO above about 12800 would not really be necessary.Anyway, it looks good, not dissing this camera! Though my Canon c100 has less noise than this at all of the ISO levels up to 52,000 though so I'm not totally amazed!

Help me understand how this video was "shot to underexpose" at ISO 1600. The aperture and shutter speed are listed on the video and consistent for all ISOs, as they would need to be in a comparison of this sort.

Are you talking about post-processing? Why would a "'professional video person" confuse terms?

Sam... While not exactly sure, I would expect that this video had to be downsampled at least once before/during being posted on this review site. I suggest that was where the noticeable artifacts came in.

Yes I'm comparing the usual compression artefacts of a C100 full HD video to h.264 at the highest bitrate then uploaded to youtube to this which I assume is the same process - so I was comparing the artefacts (produced by noise) between both after compression. As most delivery is on the web this is the comparison I'm making.I guess generally I'm agreeing that the man seems to be able to see perfectly well in what appears to be pitch black in the ISO1600 shot but normally from this kind of light I would expect more dynamic range and visible image at 1600/f2.8. Maybe I'm used to the Canon 5D3..

at 1/50th? I don't think so. For a film you cannot expose more than the duration of the frame based on the frame rate. And I can operate after few minutes in just a star light. Next to the lake easy. And the fire is like a flash light to me. Not so much for the camera. For now I will reserve the judgement for some more scientific images.

No, it will likely (see the A7 and A7R and other Sony cameras) have DRO for jpegs which does something similar, HDR multi frame exposures and of course RAW to apply a similar compression (curve) of the DR yourself in your converter of choice.

the iso 1600 seems grossly underexposedthe person working under dark skies can evidently see fine under the bright night skies (city lit or dusk lit after sunset?) with back turned from the fire

if the moon was out (it didn't appear so from lack of harsh shadows, unless it was overcast: stars not visible means it is overcast skies) it would be very bright blue skies identical to midday sun on a clear day.

likely video was captured well after dusk with enough light to see without fire (as the busy person shown indicates) on an overcast evening, rather than full moonless clear skies starry night. any civilization nearby means overcast evening skies quite bright to see without fire. distant lights on horizon tells us it's at least dusk (after 8 - 8:30pm)

it will be awhile before SONY catches up to Canon sensors, which already can capture on video in realtime both flying fireflies or shooting stars (in the dead of night without moonlight or city light)

easiest way to gauge intensity of sky brightness versus fire brightness is absence of shadows cast by fire, or highlights lit by fire is overwhelmed by evening light from surrounding skies on immediate surroundings. total absence of red fire glow on objects near fire tells us the sky is still quite bright, but grossly underexposed as appearing blackened out.

why build a fire at all if it has no lighting ability of its surroundings?

the scene is contrived via gross underexposure, and regrading (pp) back to normal brightness, as many shooting raw stills do for high contrast daytime shots do to 'prove' shadow lifting capabilities. (sony/nikon shooters do this all the time)

@sdaniella Your comment, "why build a fire at all if it has no lighting ability of its surroundings?" made me literally laugh out loud. The subject is removing his fish from a drying rack and this is a "contrived" setup? Girl, you seriously need to step away from the computer and travel a bit. Get up at dawn when the ambient temperature is sub 40°F and see if having a fire might not be a pleasant thing.

On another note, I'll allow that the latest version of Canon sensors *might* be better at the very specific firefly example you'd noted than the A7S (very freakin doubtful), but at least you agree that sooner or later, Sony will surpass them ("...it will be awhile before SONY catches up to Canon sensors").

@Fri13 she most certainly is talking about that Canon sensor.I'm not sure we've seen any information from Canon stating that it will actually make it to an actual product. It might just be a proof of concept.

Besides, the Canon sensor is as far as i know native Full HD, only. And that will limit it's appeal You can always claim, that the people that will most benefit from beeing able to shoot under poor light (amateurs, indies, documentarians), do not really need more than full HD, for some years to come. But I bet most of them would like to be able to shoot at higher resolutions, and comparing the two, I bet they would choose the Sony. Unless we are talking about scientist, but those are shopping around for specialist gear and that is often a completely different market.

The part about it not beeing as dark as we are led to believe (or lead ourself to believe, keep in mind this is video and not stills), might be true, but we simply do not have any proof of that.

I do not think that is the way to assess _still_ image quality under low light conditions. In video one can do noise reduction based on previous frames so the video shutter times do not provide fair comparison to equivalent still image shutter times. One needs to shoot still images and compare those.

There is now question the new Sony will be _awesome_ in low light. Sony leads in sensor technology, the camera has full frame sensor size and very large pixel (since low number of pixels). Sony Alpha 7s is the new Low Lght Beast(tm).

And I shoot Canon, so not a Sony fanboy here. I would be interested to buy a Sony Alpha MLC as a second camera, but I do not have the extra 2-3000€ to spend :-(

And yes, with ~10k€ in Canon camera and lenses, I am curious to see where does this camera system war end to. I think Mirrorless will win over DSLR.

Yeah, like other DSLRs and mirrorless do anything else but 8-bit. Even Canon 1DC does 8-bit (along with GH3). GH4 is the only exception but requires external recorder for 10 bis. Internal recording even on GH4 is 8bit 4:2:0

It is impossible to judge the performance from that video in my opinion. They should have started out with the high ISO in the lowest light and then lowering the ISO as it becomes lighter.

In my opinion it would also have been much more interesting with some full size images in low light.

I also think Sony should have made two versions of the camera. One for videographers and one for photographers as the 4k video is more or less useless (for most people) as it is not possible to record to the SD-Card anyway.

It is not that 12MP is not good enough, but personally I would have preferred 16-18MP. But of course it fits better with Sonys offerings of 12-24-36MP.

I'm really curious to see the high ISO-performance, but don't expect it to be a lot better than the D3s - maybe 1/2 stop or so?

Blimey! Not long ago I thought ISO 400 was fast. I hope the autofocus is up to the job though. ISO 6400 on the A7r is perfectly usable, but by the time it is dark enough to need it the AF is really struggling.

LOL, Akpinxit is complaining about the artistic merits of a demo video. Yes, it's a "technical" demonstration. But I'm quite sure that once it gets into the hands of true artists, it'll produce video of artistic merit too.

The only major plus point I can think of about the A7s is something which is not been mentioned [or has it?] which is that its sensor has a very Low pixel density of 1.44 MP/cm² which is a rarity in cmos sensors these days! Almost every cmos ff or aps-c sensor has pixel densitiies above 4 but this one has 1.44 which makes it very interesting. Even the a7/a7r and nikon d800e have pixel densities above 4.

Incase you didnt know lower pixel densities give you images which have more detail and sharpness but there are many who dont accept this as problem is the megapixels have to be kept low in order to achieve a low pixel density and large megapixel nos are the in thing to selling dslrs and ilce systems these days. So if they come out with a camera with low megapixels and a low pixel density then instantly people assume its an inferior product!

Nobody has mentioned that it has a comparatively low resolution sensor!? And that that comparatively low resolution sensor might perform better in some regards to high resolution sensors of the same size!? Wow that's a good point, I'm glad you are here to bring it up because nobody has spotted it thus far... Maybe Sony should put it in the name, like 'Good at capturing light' or maybe something shorter, like 'Sensitive' ;)

aborta - I dont know if you are being sarcastic or not. Its well known that a sensor with low pixel density + low megapixel can be used to print larger print sizes as compared to high pixel density + high megapixel which sometimes show artefacts when used for printing large sizes. I also think in the a7s the load on the sensor will be lesser thanks to the low megapixel plus faster write times (especially raw) which might help achieve a higher burst rate.

You are completely right. 12 Megapixels is more than enough, and marketing drives the race to 24 and 36, etc. Megapixel cameras. Here we get clearly better performance, because the larger Megapixel cameras CAN NOT sample their sensors completely this quickly. Usually the ways in which larger Megapixel cameras are crippled or underperform are more subtle, and missed by average users who just re-bleat marketing speak.

When I download images from new cameras from dpreview to examine them, usually the first step I take is to downsize them to 7 or 8 Megapixels, to look at them as I would truly use them, process them, etc. on my computer.

I prefer 24MP FF sensors. I can use it to crop or downsize (downsizing gives you similar noise and more detail which can be traded for additional noise reduction: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/dxomark_sensor_for_benchmarking_cameras2.shtml; there are enough scientific paper to show how to do so to increase dynamic range, eliminate artefacts. For extreme ISOs this doesn't work anymore, but for the ones interesting for me, no problem). I see the value in less MP for me only in case of video. But as I don't do this at all, I'm still wondering what do I need ISO 400k for? I don't see the value of shooting at night to have a picture which I could do during the day, too. There may be people really requiring it, but how many amateurs really need this?

Lots of wildlife videos are shot under low-light conditions, or even at night. A lot of photography is about acquiring information, not necessarily art. My first digital photographs were taken through a microscope in a biology lab.

But even for artists, I think the implication of this camera is cleaner video at lower ISOs, too. I would bet that ISO 1600, 3200 etc. is cleaner than it is on competing cameras.

EDIT: Also, whatever the burst rate is on your camera is affected by the size of the files. If you have a 24Mp camera with 8 fps burst (I'm guessing), you would have significantly faster burst with 12Mp. It might be as much as double. If you think about 4K video, as on the Panasonic GH4, that is essentially a 30 fps burst mode with a file size of 8 Mp! That's what you're missing out on by having to have 24 Mp files. I'll bet whatever your current camera is could do a burst mode of 30 fps with 8 Mp files, if it had been designed to use its processing power in that way.

bobbarber:True, burst rate certainly is s.th. If people rely on it (sports photographer, for example), fine. However there will be a point where it doesn't matter whether it is 13 or 16 fps for 99% of us. Processing gets better, so it is only a matter of time when even a 24mp sensor manages that. I don't say nobody needs it. But I think the vast majority probably won't. When the A7r came out everybody was raving. Now the A7s comes out and everybody says 12MP is enough.

I don't care too much about high Megapixels, but I'm sure you're right that a lot of posters praised them in one camera, then praised low Megapixels in another...

As far as processing, yes, your 24 Mp camera will probably do 30 fps some day, but if it were 12 Mp, then it would do 60 fps, of if it were 8 Mp, then it would do 90 fps. You will always have an advantage in processing time from a lower number of Megapixels.

Choice is good, no doubt. But I have thought for a long time (WAY before this camera came out) that the next phase in the camera wars will be about performance and functionality, not resolution. We are WAY past the resolution needed for99.99% of printing needs, even at 12 Mp and even cropped. I made excellent 8x10s out of a 2 Megapixel point and shoot, and I've seen billboards out of a 5 Megapixel Fuji. 24 Mp? or (!) 36? No thanks. A camera like this with increased functionality is much more appealing to me than the D800, for example, or the other A7 cameras.

Wanted to add one more thing. I hate Sony's strategy of releasing a new camera system with many useful features deliberately missing and then within a few months or a year they release a 'superior' version of the camera system with the very useful features which should have been added in the original release. Remember when they came out with the Nex-3 and Nex-5 which didnt have full manual control in video but soon they released the 5n, nex-6, nex-7 with full manual control. Those who bought the oriignal nex-3/5 were left with an inferior product and hardly any resale value. The same could be said about the slt series. Also in slt series they didnt provide any sensor based contrast or phase detect af and if u removed the slt mirror [to improve image quality] you couldnt use the af! Reg a7 series! the 1st ones didnt give uncompressed video output and then they come out with the a7s which can shoot 4k video and give 4:2:2 uncompressed outputs! feel sorry for those who bot the original a7

So which is it? In the post below you complain about video being considered important and a 'selling point' to these cameras when it supposedly shouldn't be, then complain that the original NEX series didn't have manual control for video?

On another point, did Sony advertise that the NEX-3/5 had manual control in video? Was it MEANT to be a feature? Complaining that an newer upgraded model has 'more stuff' than the old model is just ridiculous! Yet somehow we see it all the time.

The NEX-3/5 did however gain a whole heap of improvements via firmware updates including adding peaking, picture effects, far better manual controls and menus etc... But people gotta whine right? Can't talk about the good things, just have a soon fest instead for not getting MORE free upgrades ;)

After much wishing and praying DSLRs eventually got articulating screens (only in the low end still though), it probably killed the value of the 550D when the 600D came out, Canon should not have brought out a camera with a tilt screen, I mean those poor bastards that bought 550D's what are they to do? And they didn't even give them a firmware update to add screen tilting, how unscrupulous Canon! They should be dragged over the coals for it.

For what it's worth the A7 series are three different cameras for three different uses that all happen to share the same Form factor. One is not replacing any of the others. Only the A7S sensor is fast enough for 4K readout, so even if they were launched all at the same time the A7S would still be the only one with 4K video.

On the flip side, you won't see A7S owners complaining that Sony ripped them off with 'only' 12MP when the A7R has 3 times that many!

aborta - Its true in the earlier comment I mentioned about video being hyped in dslr/ilce bodies and then in the next one I mentioned about crippled video features in the first nex. It was merely mentioned by me as an example about sony releasing cameras with some important features deliberately missing and then releasing a newer version [with those important features] in a short span on time. The good side to this is [especially in regard to sony] is that the smart buyer knows how sony operates and wont jump the gun when sony annouces a new product. They will just wait for the better version of the product to be launched and then go for it.

Trojmacready - I was talking about uncompressed 4k video output. Can the a7/a7r give that?

who uses 409600 iso anyway and do pros use isos above 1600 in real life situations? Its well known that lower isos give you better looking clean images than high isos. High isos are best used for some rare emergency situations where capturing a pic in low light using the quickest possible method is needed but the majority of everyday pics can be captured using low isos.

another thing which is bugging me is why do all dslr/mirrorless compact manufacturers still continue to hype the video capabilities when fact is dslrs and mirrorless compacts are designed for still photography. This thing has been going on for almost 5 years what with the 5d mk2 was released with video capability.

If selling video enabled devices is what they want to do how about just releasing affordable 'handicam' style cameras with aps-c or ff sensors. I know there are lots of expensive pro grade models but not cheap ones. Bet they wont release any till this video enabled dslr/ILCE craze dies down!

Yes, pros use ISO 1600 all the time, and even more so now that ISO 1600 quality so much better than it used to be. And it's not just for "emergency situations." Everyday shots in indoor existing light, around the house, is often quite low and images shot in such indoor conditions easily benefit from high ISOs. Maybe you live in a house that has a roof comprised entirely of glass, but that's not the case with most buildings and homes, LOL. Plus, as a wedding photographer who tries to avoid the use of flash as much as possible, I can tell you that we practically live at ISO 1600 (or higher)! The image quality is certainly good enough for it these days. And natural light photography, especially for wedding photojournalism, just looks better. Plus, many churches (often dimly lit) do not allow flash photography at all. So that means we absolutely depend on high ISOs during these church ceremonies. It's not uncommon to shoot an entire ceremony at ISO 1600 or higher.

Oh man, I use ISO 6400 whenever I'm shooting indoors. Sometimes even with the lens wide open at 2.8, I cannot get fast enough shutter speed to freeze the moment. I rarely go above 6400, but not because I don't need it, but the image quality has never been good enough to justify using it. But with this sensor, I think we can max the ISO and shoot indoor sports without worry about noise.

T3 - As I said not many go above iso 1600 and yes most of present day dslrs/msc click low noise pics at iso 1600 but I was wondering about who will use iso 409*** iso

James Booba - To a certain extent a sensor which can output 409*** iso will theoritically show low noise which clicked at lower isos. I agree with you on that.

Abortabort - It was the oly/pana m4/3 which popularised this trend followed by samsung nx. sony was a late entrant to the party [on the aps front. But I must admit they are the first to come out in full frame.

cheap handicam devices don't have lens options or shallow depth of field. These apsc mirrorless DSLR video cameras allow the potential to mount nearly any lens ever made using cheap adapters. Suddenly you have literally thousands of lens options and tons of creative control over depth of field.

@aruk5 - I don't think you get it. There really is no limit to what ISO people will use, as long as it delivers sufficient image quality. You seem really hung up on the ISO number. For the rest of us, it's really about getting the image-- even when the light is really low. There are a lot of images that we aren't getting now because we don't have sensors that are sensitive enough. We're losing images to subject motion, or we're having to resort to artificial lighting (flash) in order to deal with low light levels, or we don't even try getting the image! But as cameras keep pushing ISO performance to ever higher levels, usage of these expanded ISO levels has followed. If the choice is between getting the image at ISO 409K, versus getting *no image* at all, I'll gladly go for the ISO 409K. Go look at iconic classic photos, like from Cartier-Bresson; upon close inspection, the grain-level IQ isn't great. But the overall image itself is! A grainier image is better than no image!

@aruk5 - as the technology continues to progress, the acceptable ISO range at which we choose to shoot at continues to expand, and as a result, the lighting conditions at which we are able to shoot in continues to expand. I remember when I first started shooting DSLR with the Canon 10D back in 2003. My usable ISO range was 100-800. I rarely ever went to ISO 1600. Now, the usable range is much greater. I now feel comfortable going from 100-6400, daily. Which means fewer images lost to subject motion, and fewer shooting limitations. With some cameras, 100-12800 is no problem. Tomorrows cameras will have even broader usable range. As I said before, a grainier image is still better than no image at all. Plus, many clients even love those grainier images, especially if they capture something special. You don't get paid for *not* shooting. You don't capture memorable moments by *not* shooting. If the choice is between going high ISO, or going home, I choose going high ISO!

What FL were they using? What was the subject distance? What is the circle of confusion when viewing on a smallish screen like you likely are? Those things are more important than the aperture in isolation.

What impresses me most is not that ISO 409,600 as such, but what we will get in the 12,800-52,000 range from it, which looks incredible.

Only problem thus far is that we have only seen below 409,600 being underexposed and ramped up to max to show the light difference, I am looking forward to seeing some correctly exposed shots in that range.... From what I've seen it will be mighty impressive.

Unless you are a spy, or for video surveillance purpose, what is the advantage of shooting this scene @ 409.600 ISO ? This, by far, does not match what your eyes can see. You do not record the true "mood" of the scene...Personnally, when I shoot in low light, I set the camera so it records what I can see actually. In other words, I underexpose most of the time. I do not want the picture to look as if it was shot under bright sun !

Fair enough, but having the capability a) opens up new opportunities of expression of a scene but more importantly b) should quite dramatically improve quality of images in more 'common' ranges. Everyone jumps to test 'the max' on things like this, but the biggest improvement will actually be in the more commonly used range, say up to 12,800 or less, with maybe a couple of stops of usable 'emergency' range above (say 25-50,000).

What is the equivalent ISO of what you eyes can see? It changes! After acclimatizing in a dark space for some time one can start to see a lot! I hate to think what the equivalent ISO would be, but likely in the range around 400,000. Admittedly the colour receptors in the eye are less sensitive and in very dark scenes colour is not seen naturally very well (the video shows amazing colour at ISO 400,000), but I am assuming that saturation could be reduced to gain the "mood" of what the eye really perceives.....just my $0.02.....

Why not? People pay tens of thousands of $'s for night vision gear, which has much poorer resolution and no colour. But I agree that I prefer shots that look like what I saw. I can however see the value in going beyond that.

1/50 at f/2.8 and ISO 409600 is LV -3 (light value). That's about full moon light. Some AF systems still work, most won't. Human eye can still see well, people are casting a visible shadow, it is NOT completely dark.

I would like to see an image of shadows created just from starlight. I have seen an image of a shadow made by using the light of Venus, but not from just stars (excluding our Sun which is a star). I can imagine each star casting a shadow for an object. Do the images you refer to, from yesterday’s SLR cameras, show multiple shadows of an object from starlight?

People are amazed. However, this is something EVERY recent Nikon or Sony full frame camera with Sony sensor is capable of in still. Just push ISO from 6400 by 6 EV in post, apply heavy NR and downscale to video resolution.

The thing new is the missing line skipping which doesn't loose you anymore 2 EV or so in video mode. And the gradation options help overcome the limitations of the missing raw file.

None of the current Exmor-based cameras can achieve a usable 409K ISO image even at 1920x1080 with NR - they have too much High ISO read noise for this type of night scene. The D4s/D4/Df/1DX/6D, maybe.

Here's an interesting question... What happens to ISO409k after you've been holding the camera for a few minutes and your own body warmth begins to raise the thermal noise in the sensor through the camera body?